Organizing for America | Carlo Lipizzi's Blog: Ideas from Economic Recovery Meetings in Hoboken, NJ

Ideas from Economic Recovery Meetings in Hoboken, NJ

By Carlo Lipizzi - Mar 3rd, 2009 at 6:05 pm EST

Also listed in: Small Business for Obama

Comments | Mail to a Friend | Report Objectionable Content

Tags: Economic Recovery House Meetings, Hoboken-NJ, innovation, new jobs

Economic Recovery Meeting

Feb. 27th ‘09

Meeting started at around 6:30pm with a total of 8 participants.

After brief personal introductions we shared some comments on the current economical situation and its impacts on each of us.

We watched the video with the Gov. Tim Kaine message and then we started talking about the Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, watching the Pres. Obama’s recent video on Budget Blueprint. We also spent some time exploring the Recovery.org website to let all the participants to look at the information provided by the White House on this matter.

We had a 45’ brainstorming-like discussion about the points we believe should have an high priority within the Recovery/Reinvestment Plan. The points are:

Accountability/transparency “all the way down”
Cities going “green”/efficiency issues:
Introducing “green” solutions in public properties
Optimizing the number of public offices
Rewiring buildings
Particular attention should be paid to the real effectiveness of major “green” projects
Private energy production solutions
Supporting aging population
Economic value of the projects
Medical records management
Optimizing local transportation
Workforce re-aggregation

Please, see click below on "Read More" for details.

Economic Recovery Meeting - Details

Feb. 27th ‘09

These are the details of our discussion about the points we believe should have an high priority within the Recovery/Reinvestment Plan:

Accountability/transparency “all the way down”. We definitely want the money the Federal Government is going to spend to be effectively used in Main St. No matter how transparent the process at Washington level is, a good part of the money will be spent at the local level, by local administrations. Based on our local experience, we know that some of those administrations do not traditionally have the same characteristics of accountability and transparency. Difference between having a high accountability level all the way down or not can be the difference between success and failure in the effective use of funds.

Cities going “green”/efficiency issues.
- Introducing “green” solutions in public properties. Number of both public buildings and government owned vehicles is quite high. Converting those properties into “green” would have a major impact on the US global energy bill. Examples are: installing solar panels on top of municipal/state/federal buildings, replacing cars and trucks with hybrid/electric vehicles
- Optimizing the number of public offices. Post offices, fire houses for example could be reduced in cities like Hoboken
- Rewiring buildings. Most of the buildings in cities like Hoboken have very old wires that are difficult to maintain, dissipating a lot of energy, creating potential hazards (we had few fire issues in recent times here in town)
- Particular attention should be paid to the real effectiveness of major “green” projects. As an example, we have an area in Hoboken that is below sea level and subject to flooding. Installing a drainage system is necessary, but the use/dispose of the collected water should be carefully defined within new and existing EPA regulations. Generally speaking, larger projects should have a state/federal overview/approval
- Private energy production solutions – like some solar panels – should allow and encourage individuals to sell back to the system unused energy
Supporting aging population. Within the Recovery and Reinvestment Plan we believe some projects should address our aging population and the related need for assistance, both in the form of nursing homes and senior housing
Economic value of the projects. We realize how important is to inject the economy with new money through new projects. We also believe a special attention should be paid to the real economic value of those projects
Medical records. A large portion of the current medical records is on paper, within a costly and highly inefficient system. Creating a reliable, secure and sustainable solution to electronically manage those records should be an high priority for the Recovery and Reinvestment Plan
Optimizing local transportation. Introducing efficient and reliable local buses could reduce the number of private vehicles and private shuttles in towns like Hoboken. Also at our local level, the option of extending the already planned extension of the 7 train in NYC up to the NJ side – building a new tunnel under the Hudson river – would make the NY/NJ commuting more efficient
Workforce re-aggregation. With a quite high unemployment rate, number of people with no job but with valuable experiences is at a historically high value. This is also a moment of change of vast proportion and many of the current most innovative and successful companies were created in periods of economic turmoil. While “between jobs” people could work on creating new services/products leveraging on some of the current critical issues, such as resource optimization or competitiveness improvement services. Recovery and Reinvestment Plan could help those “workforce re-aggregations” through startup financial support and reserving part of the budget for new projects to those initiatives.

Reader Comments	Comments RSS
Comments are closed for this post.

No comments have been written yet.

Content on blogs in My.BarackObama represents the opinions of community members and in no way should be interpreted as endorsed or approved by the campaign.